CUBA LIBRE:

U.S. ready in case of major exodus from Cuba (ALFONSO CHARDY, Apr. 20, 2003, Miami Herald)

Coast Guard cutters operating off South Florida's shores have picked up fewer Cuban migrants in the first three months of the year than Haitians and Dominicans combined. But the absence of large numbers of Cuban migrants headed for South Florida may be the calm before the storm.

A wave of repression in Cuba in recent weeks has been so alarming that U.S. officials have begun to wonder whether Cuba may unleash a new Mariel-style exodus -- a typical Cuban response in times of crisis. American officials are so worried that they have already quietly advised Cuba not to attempt any such action.

But if a new exodus occurs, officials say they will activate a classified federal contingency plan designed to deal with migrant surges. Operation Distant Shore would trigger a dramatic escalation in the number of Coast Guard and other military vessels patrolling the Florida Straits -- a veritable floating wall designed to interdict as many migrants as possible at sea.

Talk of the plan is all the more relevant in the wake of reports last week that President Bush was preparing punitive steps against Cuba along with a possible public warning to Fidel Castro not to resort to a new exodus. No one will say when Bush would deliver the warning, but officials at the White House's National Security Council and the State Department have left no doubt that Washington is concerned. [...]

Some Cuba analysts in the United States believe that the Camarioca departures in 1965, the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and the rafter exodus in 1994 were ''engineered migrations'' -- political weapons designed to punish the United States for real or imagined actions and coerce it into softening policies toward Cuba.

Cuba expert Kelly M. Greenhill argued in a landmark study last year of Cuban mass migrations that Castro launched the rafter exodus to ''manipulate'' fears in the United States of another Mariel to compel a shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba.

The exodus ended when the United States and Cuba began to negotiate new migration accords under which Washington eventually agreed to return migrants stopped at sea to Cuba. Until then, Cuban migrants rescued at sea were brought to the United States and allowed to stay.

American talk of freedom abroad must turn to ashes in our mouths when we contemplate our willingness to collaborate in exercises like this. Every day that Castro oppresses Cuba is an indictment of the United States. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 20, 2003 6:19 AM